The present invention relates to a method for sorting cops and spintubes used therein.
Until now it has been customary to distinguish between yarn counts visually by observing the color of the spintube. As a consequence of the continuing mechanization of the spinning and winding operations, visual recognition of tubes is no longer practical as cops are no longer positioned manually on the winding machine, but are dumped into a container, from where they are transported automatically to their positions on the winding machine. Furthermore there are more different yarn counts than there are spintubes which differ distinguishably. In this connection it should be observed that when a cop is full, only the extreme ends of the spintube are visible. (Cops are spintubes covered with yarn.)
There is a risk that a different yarn count is present among a batch of cops with a certain count and this may result in considerable economic losses, since one wrong cop, usually containing some 3000 meters of yarn in one batch, may ruin one cone (or cheese) on which the yarn of usually 10 to 15 cops has been wound. In its turn one wrong cone, when used for weft, may ruin one or two meters of cloth and when used for warp may ruin even hundreds to thousands of meters of cloth.
It has now been found in accordance with the present invention, that the above-described difficulties may be overcome by detecting the cops by electronic means, using a distinctive signal pattern formed by the individual spintubes.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide an arrangement of the foregoing character which is simple in construction and may be economically fabricated.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement, as described, which may be readily maintained in service, and which has a substantially long operating life.